I have an important area in the garden near the back door, that is
north-facing, shaded from the south by a fence and tends to be damp. It
contains some shrub roses, a chinese virginia creeper, hellebores and lesser
periwinkles. I have had to remove one hellebore as it showed distorted leaves
strongly suggesting virus infection. The same thing is happening to the
periwinkles and I will remove them too. The roses and virginia creeper seem
unaffected.

Given this information, can anyone suggest some ground cover planting to
replace the periwinkles (they were purple and I was looking forward to them
dammit) that would be ideally all of the following- evergreen, suited to
damper shadier areas but not minding drying out too much, and with pink or
purple flowers?

I could try one or two small euonymus there maybe- I'd settle for foliage
only if I had to. I suppose Icould even have nothing but bark chips around
the roses if all else fails.

[I have had geraniums picking up viruses here too, though not in this exact
location, so I want to avoid them for this area. Belatedly, it is obvious I
should only be gardening the virus-free areas with my usual gardening tools,
and being very careful with potential contamination of tools, soil, etc,
anywhere else- maybe the bark chips idea would save me trouble in the long
run...]

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Vacutone